


Our Next Journey

by bloodlessdandy



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ageing Sherlock, Angst, Countryside roadtrip, Endings, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Flashbacks, Insight, Journey, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Memories, Memories of Baskerville, Post-Episode: s02e02 The Hounds of Baskerville, Road Trip, drunken conversations, ptsd mention, song inside as a bonus xoxo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-08 03:01:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19862410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodlessdandy/pseuds/bloodlessdandy
Summary: It all began with a joke, a date on a calendar and Mrs Hudson’s old gambling addiction. Then, a road trip. New steps towards an old destination. A destination well-preserved in Sherlock's best memories.The Jeep let out a soft roar as Sherlock pulled over by the edge of the cliff. The cassette player had remained loyal to him throughout the whole journey, chewing that same grey cassette tirelessly.‘Here we are’, Sherlock whispered, his eyes fixed on the horizon. Unruly bushes and splashes of green characterised the skin of Dartmoor, where John and he had solved the case of the Hound, the gigantic Hound of Baskerville.Sherlock remembered that case as if he had solved it the day before. Yet, fifteen years had elapsed since that day. That day in which they had fled the place, blood boiling in their veins, running from everybody else and with the prospect of a last-minute vacation – God knows where but together.The song played on.Sherlock reached the passenger’s seat, opening the car door silently and undoing the seatbelt.‘I promised we would come back someday.’





	Our Next Journey

It all began with a joke, a date on a calendar and Mrs Hudson’s old gambling addiction.

Unlike normal people, Sherlock was not the kind of person to take days off his work to relieve the stress. Quite the contrary, the more days off cases he had, the more he made himself and other people stressed. And since that was common knowledge for Mycroft, Lestrade and Molly Hooper, the joke was clearly on him. Then, as it often happens when you challenge Sherlock Holmes, that conversation had poked the worn-out calendar pages in his mind palace. Soon enough it would be their anniversary; that in itself was a perfect date to prove all of them wrong. Then Mrs Hudson had suggested – rather, she had placed bets – on whether Sherlock would have brought John with him in the event that he really left London.

That money had reached somebody’s pockets, Sherlock thought, his fingers tapping the steering wheel idly while he was driving on the highway. Soon the silver skyscrapers and factories that outlined London’s spine were replaced with an eyeful of wind-swept hills, their lazy bellies hit by the last rays of the day. The exact moment when sunset transitioned into twilight: that had always been John’s favourite moment of the day.

He was wearing that jumper, the one Sherlock loved; the one in maroon and beige with patches of red. That jumper hadn’t aged one day since the day John had bought it. Sherlock remembered it as the day on which John ran away from the shop without paying because, as it used to happen, he had been alerted by one of the detective’s vitally important texts. Mrs Hudson and Sherlock spent weeks laughing about the incident; John, on the other hand, didn’t seem so happy, since shoplifting wasn’t exactly what he had planned to be remembered for.

_The third on the left, then the second right. Then right again. God’s sake, I wish they planned countryside roads better._

One curve after another, Sherlock finally saw the billboard he was looking for.

**_Dartmoor, Baskerville Base 2 miles._ **

‘You see? I’m still the best driver.’ He grinned, turning towards the passenger’s seat.

***

The case brought to Sherlock’s attention by Henry Knight was solved. Thorough investigations within the Baskerville base had followed and a new line of control had been put in place by an overexcited Lestrade, operating outside of his usual division. As a result, the duo’s bags and suitcases were now laying by the hotel door, ready to be picked up and returned to London’s hectic pace with their respective owners. This overall sense of closure best explains why what Doctor Watson said next caught Sherlock off guard.

‘Do we still have that Jeep we used to sneak into the base?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Remember, three days ago, we tried to use Mycroft’s credentials and were nearly arrested…’ He trailed off, his gaze directed at Sherlock in the hope he picked up the hint.

‘Oh. You mean the Jeep we used to reach Dartmoor.’ He frowned.

‘Yep. That one, Sherlock.’

John found himself thinking that, for an investigative genius, he was quite daft at times. Endless seconds of silence followed, then that all-too-familiar smirk popped on Sherlock’s face, revealing he had cracked the code.

‘You are suggesting we should just drive off somewhere instead of going back to London.’

‘I am.’ John replied, his arms crossed on his chest and an impatient smile painted on his lips.

‘You see, John, the condition of your shirt and your expression suggest a getaway is undoubtedly on your mind. The three days of dirty laundry in your bag, however-…’

‘Ah, the hell with the dirty laundry. If I’m lucky, I’ll have to wait another ten years at least until you even _consider_ leaving Baker Street.’

Sherlock sighed. He wasn’t the type for irrational, last-minute decisions. Quite the contrary, he had already planned what scarves and shirts to wear on which day for the rest of the week. However, anybody confronting John Watson’s energy and determination would have found themselves questioning their own priorities.

‘Alright. But no more than 72 hours. And I get to choose the place.’ Sherlock’s expression was quite eloquent ( _excitement, the thrill of the flight, the taste of unknown_ ) while he ran inside to snatch the keys of the Jeep from Lestrade’s briefcase. The Detective Inspector would have noticed the theft no more than five minutes later, awoken by the familiar sound of the Jeep leaving the parking area for good.

‘So, where does our adventure start?’ John’s excitement had to meet halfway with his aching back. As gorgeous as the Jeep was, driving in it was a torture when your past involved a couple of bullets and a psychosomatic limp. He squirmed in his seat for a couple of minutes before finding the perfect position.

‘Roughly 150 miles from here.’ Sherlock fixed the rearview mirror, then checked if anybody was following them. A smile of pure and irrational satisfaction took over his lips as he put both his hands back on the steering wheel. ‘Cornwall, dear John.’

‘I didn’t know you were a fan of coastlines and pasties.’ He grinned.

‘Oh, don’t be silly. You know what this is about. But, as always’, he took a deep breath before resuming with his usual: ‘you see but you do not observe.’

John’s mouthing his last words mockingly earned him a side-eye from Sherlock.

‘Don’t tell me this is about the 356 types of sand found in the British coasts. You can’t possibly be carrying out that bloody thing...’

‘Unlike _your_ blog, every information that enters _my_ blog must be thorough and accurate, dear John.’

‘But why would anyone be interested in that, Sherlock?’ He laughed, then shook his head. If anything, living with Sherlock Holmes made boredom an impossible circumstance in one’s life. ‘Why would _you_?’

John didn’t really an answer. But that didn’t stop Sherlock from brilliantly arguing his position, as he hardly ever failed to do. It all eventually resulted in a single remark of John’s, which can be summarised with: _of course_ you need all that data about sand and coasts – you live in bloody central London.

And that had made Sherlock – utterly unreceptive of sarcasm – shut up.

***

‘Is it the best they can give us?’

John couldn’t help fidgeting with the room keys. ‘Well, yes. I would consider us lucky we found a roof above our heads for the night.’ The thunderstorm outside, that had just made the windows tremble lightly, was confirmation enough of what John said. ‘Looks like the great flood all over again out there.’ And just like that, he opened the door of their majestic double room.

‘Just one bedroom. Mrs Hudson would leap for joy.’ Sherlock muttered under his breath.

‘What did you say?’ John, in the meantime, was moving their bags to their room.

‘Nothing.’ Sherlock smirked, then took off his damp coat and hung it gracefully. ‘What did the receptionist say about the main road?’

‘Closed until further notice. They think until tomorrow afternoon.’ John replied, throwing the last suitcase in the corner of the room before closing and locking the door.

Fantastic. One had barely the time to escape to Cornwall for three scarce days that the Gods above decided it was time for a tea-time weekend cataclysm. While John was refraining from cursing in alphabetical order, Sherlock, from his position next to the window, looked quite undisturbed by the situation.

‘If I were you I would avoid that armchair, John. The couple that was here before had quite a fun time in there.’

John fled the armchair straight away and reached the side of the bed. The scowl on his face made Sherlock even more inclined to poke him, but he was aware of how short John’s temper could be at times. So, instead of subjecting him to another one of his remarks, Sherlock decided to aim at the scotch bottle and glasses lying on the table for the guests’ use.

‘Come on. Relax, John. Don’t let this abysmal weather spoil your mood.’ His voice was soft as he reached John, passing the glass in his hands.

But the downpour outside wasn’t the only roaring sound in John’s head. There was this little voice, this potential inner saboteur, who seemed very inclined to push the doctor to question his choice to even have a getaway in the first place. Because, whatever that vacation had started as, now the reality he had to face was another: he was spending a weekend alone with Sherlock. Not that they hadn’t been alone before. In fact, there had been plenty of occasions in which they were the only souls spending days on end within the four walls of Baker Street – but that was something else completely. One thing was sharing a flat with your flatmate, eloping with him right after a case was another thing completely. But deep down John knew he was just worrying too much, as he tended to do.

He took a deep breath, then raised his glass. ‘You’re right. No reason not to make the best of our stay.’ He smiled at Sherlock, then whispered a ‘cheers’ before clinking the glasses.

***

Sherlock found amusing how that cassette (that had gained honorary citizenship of the car by then), still had Harry Watson’s initials on the cover. When John had first put the cassette on, Sherlock had reacted in the most unsatisfactory of ways.

‘I’m not a fan of music, John.’ He had said. ‘At least, contemporary music. Whatever falls outside of my violin sheets, let’s say.’ He had added, to John’s utter disbelief. Not that he hadn’t already figured it out, but it still came as a shock to know that Sherlock had no idea who Freddie Mercury and John Lennon were. That cassette, however, had been Harry’s before passing into John’s hands. This meant only one thing for doctor Watson: it had to be some sort of indie lesbian music. Turned out John couldn’t be more right, but that mellow tune was just what they needed for their ride to Cornwall under the pouring rain.

Sherlock stopped fiddling with the car’s old cassette reader when the first notes came out. He sat upright, his eyes concentrated on the horizon in front of him and his lips curved in a smile.

‘And, of course, your favourite track is number one. _Boring_.’ And he rolled his eyes.

***

‘Are you going to keep it?’ Sherlock popped out of the bathroom in his bathrobe, one of his hands rubbing a dry towel on his wet, wild curls.

‘Huh?’ John turned towards him, then glanced down at his hands holding the small grey cassette. ‘Oh, you mean this. Why not, it’s good music.’ He saw Sherlock was about to say something about how music being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ was just a construct, an experience rooted on exposition to different tunes during the mother’s pregnancy. So he decided to just glance across the room and whisper a ‘ _shush_ , we know’.

Sherlock didn’t look offended by that. On the contrary, he smiled, then shrugged. His clothes were hanging neatly next to the door, damp enough to need a good night of rest as close as possible to the radiators.

‘And then’ John resumed, out of nowhere, ‘the first track is bloody good.’

Sherlock could hardly argue otherwise. After rubbing and squeezing and eventually drying his curls, he came back to the large bed which neat aspect promised a good night’s sleep. He glanced at John, who was still sitting on the border, a replenished glass in his hand and the cassette in the other. If Sherlock hadn’t been utterly unobservant in the face of intrinsic human emotions, he would have guessed he was tense. On the other hand, Sherlock was too good of a scientist for his own good. So, when he got closer to John, he couldn’t help noticing his hands were shaking.

‘Used to happen a lot, you know… before moving in in Baker Street.’ John gulped one last sip before raising his hand, now holding the empty glass. ‘Hands shaking, back sweating, head spinning…Nothing unusual for PTSD.’

Sherlock sat next to him in complete silence. He didn’t feel the need to read him, because John was already willing to narrate with his own voice and his open heart to him.

‘You must forgive me, Sherlock. I understand how difficult it is to put up with me sometimes. I don’t come with a manual of instructions and…-‘

‘Neither do I.’ Sherlock had felt the need to stop him. ‘We both are a mess, John. No need to apologise.’

‘Yes, but…even a situation as trivial as sharing a bed with someone, another body sleeping right next to me, in the dark, motionless – you see…I am afraid of what that could trigger.’

Sherlock remained silent, then he left John’s side only to jump upon the bed. He sat on it, moved the pillows around, then patted a square of blankets right in front of him.

‘Come on’, he announced, his hands theatrically on his hips, ‘we don’t have to sleep just yet. We can fool time, you and I.’ He was smiling.

The bottle of Scotch being the only convenience available in the hotel room – no cable tv, no radio, no board games anywhere – they felt encouraged to make use of it until the last drop. Sitting in front of each other, some towels and socks and belts messily scattered around, they had been deep in conversation for what seemed like minutes but was, in truth, hours.

‘I said I can read you easily. You know I can, all the proof you need is our first meeting at Barth’s.’

‘Exactly, Sherlock. This is why this game isn’t fun. You know when I lie and when it’s my turn I just stumble in the dark trying to scratch off the surface.’ John shook his head for the tenth time, while his hand fetched the bottle to shake it. Empty. He grimaced for a split second.

‘Next one is mine. I say, you were upset when I put sugar in your coffee two days ago.’ Sherlock’s intellect, like a mighty Atlas, could bear the weight of many things: tension, time, pressure from outside. If it could successfully bear alcohol, well, that was something Sherlock was doing his best to test.

‘Well, no shit. It doesn’t take a mind reader to figure that out. Try better.’ John arched an eyebrow, an expression of blissful inebriation on his face.

‘Okay, _uhm_.’ With his palms joined and his fingers aligned touching his lips, Sherlock adopted his typical thinking position to retrieve some data he had stored during the last days. ‘I have it.’ He coughed lightly, then pointed a finger at John,

‘You are scared of spiders.’

‘That’s cheating.’ John blurted out, his hand pushing Sherlock’s finger away before bursting out laughing. ‘…and based on something you remember from that…regrettable incident in the shower.’

‘You were screaming like a baby.’ Sherlock added, probably just for the sake of pissing him off. Both of them were laughing after that one.

‘Okay, my turn.’ John resolved, coughing once to clear his throat. ‘You…had a crush in kindergarten.’

Sherlock goggled for a split second, then crossed his arms on his chest. ‘I don’t _do_ crushes.’

‘I’ll tell you more. You had a _blonde_ crush in kindergarten.’ John emphasised, a smug grin on his face.

‘This is all Mycroft’s doing.’ Sherlock hissed, then shook his head. ‘Well, this is cheating as well.’ That piece of unfounded news – that Mycroft had a sweet time spreading for some time – served as a catalyst for Sherlock’s next move. His arms disentangled and his eyes opened again, gleaming with joy. ‘Wrong move, John Watson. Never try to project some issue of your past onto your counterpart. They always come up and haunt you.’ His voice vibrated with pure satisfaction. He rose from his position, getting closer to the doctor on the other end of the bed.

‘Yes, John. _You_ had a crush in kindergarten. It is a memory you are not very proud of, if not unspeakably ashamed of. ’ He murmured, his predatory gaze not leaving John’s face. ‘Something about the family, maybe. Rivalry between your parents? Or, something about Harry. Stealing your girlfriends in kindergarten already? No, it’s not about Harry. It’s something about your crush. Something about her…it must be something about her.’

John turned his head towards the wall, trying to hide the most obvious of smiles in his face. It felt amazingly refreshing, for a change, not to be the one left in the dark; for a change, to be the one who knows; for a change, to see Sherlock Holmes get something wrong.

‘That’s where you are wrong, Sherlock.’ He replied calmly, sliding underneath the soft blankets of the king-size bed. He squeezed his pillow twice before turning off the light and lying down. What a peaceful sensation, he thought, falling asleep after beating Sherlock at his own game.

But Sherlock was nowhere near giving up.

‘What? What did I miss?’ Now there was urgency in his voice as he crawled towards the other side of the bed, looking at John demandingly. He started listing his findings again,

‘Something shameful, something incomprehensible for little John Watson, something you haven’t come to terms with even after decades-…’ And that’s where it dawned on him.

‘...Oh.’ He whispered, then a soft smile slipped and settled on the curve of his lip.

John had closed his eyes and was biting his lip in the attempt not to smile too obviously. There was something utterly and unforgivably irrational in that smile. Was he smiling because, as it happens in situations in which alcohol is in your body, you find yourself facing your demons laughing hysterically at them? Was he smiling because, all things considered, Sherlock had just failed in his reading him and he was still secretly cherishing the victory? Or was he smiling because, deep down, he was glad – awfully glad – that Sherlock had reached that conclusion, that Sherlock had accessed that little piece of his life he had tried to sweep under the rug for so long?

‘… _Him_. Something about _him_.’ Sherlock murmured. He gulped, then he felt his heart pounding in his chest. He remained silent. As he remembered from the studies he had read, people hardly ever liked to be confronted about their sexuality. In fact, it was safe to say that they hated being _outed_. Breaking that boundary with John would have just been plain wrong for Sherlock, whose respect for the man could hardly be rivalled.

John coughed lightly. ‘Could you turn that light off, please?’

‘O-of course.’ Sherlock stuttered, woken up from his thoughts. He reached the other side of the bed and stretched his arm towards the switch. Suddenly the only light in the room came from the livid sky outside of the window. Sherlock slithered underneath the covers quietly, resting his head on the pillow as he pondered the three possible courses of action. Solution number one: turning on one side silently, then falling asleep; solution number two: turning on one side, giving a quick and polite goodnight to John, then falling asleep; solution number three: reaching out, making sure he is going to be fine, then falling asleep.

‘John?’ His voice came out in a whisper as he dragged his long limbs to the other side of the bed.

‘Yes, Sherl-…’ But he barely had time to answer, that Sherlock’s arm was already clutching his hip. His embrace was far from warm and welcoming; John, a smile on his lips, couldn’t help comparing that grip with that of a pair of mechanical arms. He turned slowly to see a paralysed Sherlock with his arm awkwardly stretched out towards him.

‘Are you serious about this?’ He looked at him with a grin on his lips. ‘You are such a twat.’ He then whispered, raising one of his hands to the level of Sherlock’s forehead, where he could part a messy and soft bush of curls covering his eyebrows. ‘Your hair is ridiculously long. We need to go to a barber as soon as possible.’ He murmured, so close his warm breath was caressing Sherlock’s cheeks.

The angles of Sherlock’s hard and calculating expression had been rounded by John’s gaze, full of all the patience and understanding only Sherlock was worthy of. Unconsciously, he was looking at John in awe, his eyes gleaming and focusing on the features that composed his face: the structure of his nose, the curl of his lip, the jutting jaw covered in light stubble.

‘Are you alright?’ John asked.

‘Are you?’ Sherlock replied.

They both smiled. That exchange had summarised how impossible it was for them to assess who felt more destabilised of the two. They were, to an extent, both unsettled by that unexpected turn. But that didn’t mean they weren’t ready to let it under their skins, see what effects that hot stream had on them.

‘Holding tight.’ Sherlock whispered after a couple of seconds of silence.

‘What?’ John, his eyelids closed and his hands still close to Sherlock’s brow, frowned.

‘I read it can be useful, during some cases of panic attack, to hold the person affected tight.’

‘Oh, so this is why you trapped me two minutes ago, basically.’ John giggled. When he opened his eyes, he saw a confused expression taking over Sherlock’s tranquil features. ‘It’s alright.’ He smiled. ‘Try less of a fish-in-the-net strategy and more of a…hug.’ He suggested, his voice low and calm, while Sherlock’s forehead contracted lightly, opening the gates to store that knowledge.

Sherlock’s stiff arm moved upwards, reaching his waist. As John’s hand landed on his elbow, Sherlock bent it, relaxing his grip under John’s reassuring touch.

‘That’s better’, John whispered, his eyes fixed on Sherlock’s. He nodded, then moved his hand away from Sherlock’s arm, now resting on his waist, transporting it to a quieter place than the detective’s shaky limbs. John’s hand landed on his nape, his fingers playing with the messy curls that were spreading on his pillow. ‘We _really_ need to do something about your hair.’ He restated.

For some reason, that comment made Sherlock’s lips break into a smile and his heart leap once or twice, in the grip of some sort of calmness and frenzy – all manifesting at the same time. Sherlock leant closer, holding John in his arms as he hid his face in the fold of his neck. He took a deep breath, absorbing all of John’s smell in, while his fingers clutched his shirt, holding on to it for dear life.

‘Is it part of the advice you’ve read too? Ripping my shirt off?’ John’s warm breath tickled Sherlock’s temple, upon which the doctor’s humid lips were resting. His arms were enveloping the other’s body now, snatching it from the cold filling the room, fighting for control with the soft blankets his elongated body was wrapped into. He held him tight, left a kiss on his temple, then whispered ‘goodnight, Sherlock’, before giving up his body – and all of his certainties with it – among his loving arms.

***

The Jeep let out a soft roar as Sherlock pulled over by the edge of the cliff. He undid his seatbelt, then left the car door ajar when leaving his seat. The cassette player had remained loyal to him throughout the whole journey, chewing that same grey cassette – and that one song in repeat – tirelessly.

‘Here we are’, Sherlock whispered, his eyes fixed on the horizon. Unruly bushes and splashes of green characterised the skin of Dartmoor, where John and he had solved the case of the Hound, the _gigantic_ Hound of Baskerville base. Sherlock remembered that case as if he had solved it the day before. Yet, fifteen years had elapsed since that day. That day in which they had fled the place, blood boiling in their veins, running from everybody else and with the prospect of a last-minute vacation – God knows where but together.

The song played on.

Sherlock reached the passenger’s seat, opening the car door silently and undoing the seatbelt.

‘I promised we would come back someday.’ He smiled. The relentless winds of the vale made it impossible for Sherlock to keep his eyes wide open. Maybe it was for the best. His long fingers lifted up the framed photograph from the seat. A smiling Watson was looking at him. Surely, he was laughing at Sherlock’s hair, all messed up because of the wind.

The car door shut with a thud. Sherlock walked slowly towards that rock he climbed fifteen years ago. A sea of green and brown unfolded in front of his eyes, while he held John’s photograph next to his heart, shielded by his coat.

Fifteen years had made Sherlock into another man. His hair was slowly greying now, his agility progressively getting worse, his eyes joined by the beginning of little, yet telling, wrinkles on the sides.

Fifteen years would have been fifteen days for young detective Sherlock, married to his job and sleeping with his cases under the pillow, unaware of what _connection_ , of what _love_ , of what _fleeting_ meant. But they had been fifteen full years of life for the Sherlock whose path had been changed by all of those unexpected, beautiful things. Love, he had found, was intertwined with all of those things he had always dubbed as just a flaw, a disadvantage, the grain in the lens; and it was nothing without its twin: death. Sherlock Holmes had learned that death wasn’t an enemy, rather a silent friend. Death gave you a beautiful debt that you would soon be paying.

Fifteen years were fifteen years because John had been in his life. John, smiling in the picture, with that jumper Sherlock loved. That jumper hadn’t aged a day since the day he had bought it. John Watson, the man who made fifteen minutes look like fifteen hours of happiness, and a few years in each other’s arms as centuries spent together. The end had always been part of the equation. Sherlock knew.

And so did those notes who had been with them, crammed in that grey cassette that had become their own, hearing their conversations, witnessing their hopes and fears. Those were notes that had been listened and had listened back.

**_If you must die, sweetheart, die knowing your life was my life's best part,_ **

**_If you must die, remember your life…_ **

He was smiling. And his eyes closed, as he whispered something that was for John and John alone,

‘Until our next journey.’

**Author's Note:**

> • if tears don't scare you, this is the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxQLNxFA1Mg  
> Enjoy. Cry a bit. Let's cry all together.
> 
> thanks to my luv @gerlonsostolemyheart for the beta. 
> 
> P.S. If silent reading is your thing, be sure, I'll love you lots. But, I won't lie, if you left a comment saying what you liked or didn't like or what you think in general, that would make my day. If you're reading this, though, it means you've made it until the end and I'm already grateful for that.  
> ❤


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